


Legend

by SomeNondeplume



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 16,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28337760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeNondeplume/pseuds/SomeNondeplume
Summary: Drabbles between F/V and Johnny.
Relationships: Female V/River Ward, Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 6
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

Johnny slid into the bench opposite. He was almost a stranger to me, so there was that knee-jerk ‘what the fuck’ moment when he made himself comfortable, leaned forward, and tapped the table to make sure that he had my attention. But I’d seen that mop of hair before, although before it was looming over me and threatening to kill me. I’d seen those reflective glasses before too – what kind of a dick wears glasses like that? I’d seen myself reflected in them twice now, although this time I wasn’t crawling on my hands and knees, grasping at pills like some junkie. 

‘Zapper-dumples and filth. In some ways, Night City never changes. Arosaka’s still a despotic machine and the world’s on a collision course with chaos.’

‘Are we buddies now? You know, you’ve got some nerve. First you’re out to kill me, now you wanna be my pal? Make like nothing happened?’

The whole diner stopped to star at the crazy person talking to an empty bench. Fuck. Johnny turned slowly around to see it for himself: a diorama of people asking themselves who the crazy bitch in the corner was. He turned back with a shit-eating grin.

‘You know you don’t gotta speak out loud to talk to me?’

I stood up and left. Fuck. It was my favourite diner, too. I figured I’d slip into the crowd outside. The attention on me would fade as quickly as I marched down the steps and around the corner, but the embarrassment burned for a while. I’d take a walk. Clear my head. But Johnny was right there with me. People always said I walked fast – that’s what Jackie said, but he had a lot more to cart around, I suppose – but here he was, with stupidly long legs squeezed into tight-ass leather slacks, like it was nothing. 

‘What do you want?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve processed some shit. Changed my mind. I don’t want you dead anymore.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

‘Hey, it wasn’t easy for me either. You woke up in a landfill. I woke up in your head. So we both woke up wrestling through a pile of shit. I reckon we’re even. And I’ve taken a step back to look at things since. I reckon we can help each other out.’

I rubbed my eyes. This shit was giving me a headache. Talking to myself, or talking to someone inside my head, was too weird. There was already something pounding back there, like Johnny was knocking to see if anyone was home. 

‘How, exactly? You can’t do anything. You’re a ghost. Anyone you knew is old as fuck now, and I don’t need any lectures about the good old days when there’s enough shit hitting the fan in the present.’

‘Rogue’s still alive, and we go back to the stone age. Anyway, Johnny Silverhand died a legend. Nobody forgets that.’

I stopped, and stared dead-faced. 

‘Rogue. From the Afterlife.’

He nodded. 

I raised my eyebrows incredulously. 

‘You want me to talk to fucking Rogue?’

‘I know you know who she is. I can see shit like that.’

‘So what do I say to her, exactly? That I have a brain tumour that claims to be your friend Johnny?’

The shit-eating grin I could live without. 

‘Trust me, Rogue’s heard dumber shit than that.’


	2. Chapter 2

The thumping headache I’d had ever since I woke up in the city dump never went away. It got worse, incrementally, whenever Johnny turned up. Maybe that’s why I had so little time for his smart-ass comments. Jackie was a smart-ass, too, but he didn’t make me want to puke. 

He was bitching about helping the dolls. He said it was a waste of time, and I told him that he could go fuck himself in the meantime if he wasn’t interested in being a part of it. I wasn’t going to leave some girl in the lurch like that. Some dark shit was going on, and of cause Johnny didn’t understand the ominous lump that trail of breadcrumbs was leaving in my throat. 

But then he was giving me his opinion, and my head was pounding so much that everything was starting to go sideways, and then it felt like I was choking, or suffocating, or at least malfunctioning somewhere in my chest.

‘Fuck’, I heard, when I held my hand in front of my face and saw blood. 

The space in front of me shifted and Johnny was there, looking down at the splatter of red. 

‘The hell is that?’ He sounded concerned, which surprised me. All he’d done was smart-ass and bitch. 

My first thought was Vik. Something wasn’t right. Something was very wrong. But then I was wobbling out into the crowd and ran straight into someone, who turned around and shouted ‘What the hell?’ and pushed me further off kilter.

‘For fuck’s sake, sit down.’

I could have sworn Johnny took me by the arm and steered me away from pedestrian walkway, but he couldn’t have. He was stuck in my brain, and whatever Arasaka fuckery happening up there was fooling me into thinking there was a cold metal hand on my elbow, and then on my shoulder when he pushed me down until I was sitting with my head drooping down to my lap. He was pacing. I was watching his feet come back and forth, but also I knew without having to really look. 

‘Dammit!’  
He sounded disappointed, and that was all it took for me to bite. I was in pain. I was pissed off. And Johnny Silverhand was disappointed that I was coughing up blood. 

I sucked in a sharp breath, and even though it was in my head, my words came out in a threatening hiss. ‘The fuck do you want from me?’

He stopped his pacing and crouched in front of me. He’d lit a cigarette, and I swear I could taste it, or smell it, or something, even before he blew out a puff of smoke, barely tilting his head to miss my face, and holding my gaze the whole time. He’d taken off the glasses, so at least I couldn’t see what a piece of shit I was. 

‘You’re gonna decomish before we learn how to rip the chip out.’

‘You wanted me dead. You said so yourself.’

‘Look, I made it clear since then that I changed my mind.’

‘I’m not just ditching the dolls, if that’s what you’re gonna ask me next.’

‘You can get me from point-A to point-B. As for me – well - I know things. I can save your life. I’m probably the only person around who will help with that. Maybe not the only one who can, but the only one who will.’ He flicked his cigarette away. ‘The dolls wont. You’re getting nothing out of that, and it’s like going from point-A to point-all-over-the-fucking-alphabet. It’s complicating things.’  
I was furious, and maybe it was being so unbelievably angry that helped me shake my head right for a while. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and then on my pants, cause there was more blood there than I’d realised. 

‘You don’t get it,’ I said. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be saying this shit. Because I’m probably the only person around who will help them out. So fuck off a while so I can think straight.’


	3. Chapter 3

‘Cuffers.’

The place was a cesspit, and I was actually terrified. You didn’t have to have much imagination to figure out what went on, and I hadn't found Evelyn yet. Even Johnny seemed a bit out of beat, but he was still swaggering his way through the ripper clinic, or scav nest, or whatever I’d found herself in. 

‘Except these are solid steel, not the softcore, plastic kind.’

He just nodded. Something didn’t need to be said. They could both put two and two together. 

I moved quietly to the next room. Fucking quietly. I wondered if Johnny could hear her heart beating as loud as I could. The door was covered in dirty plastic, and I didn’t have to get far inside to see that the floor and walls were all wrapped up like a shitty take-away meal, to keep it bleeding through it’s package and making a mess. 

But then I saw why. 

The woman wasn’t really woman anymore. Her implants were gone, that much was obvious. There was a little hardware left where bits and pieces had been connected. That was a lot of the face gone, and her left arms, and her breasts. Then her torso was left open, and it was pretty obvious where the cybernetic work ended and the bloody human bits started. 

‘They took her organs, too,’ I whispered. I was so scared about making noise that I was even whispering in my head.

‘How so very resourceful.’

I cast a quick look around, and tried to listen past my heartbeat to hear any noise coming from the adjoining rooms. Where were they? This place was decked out with equipment. Why weren’t they here using it?

‘V, let’s go.’

The next doorway was covered in plastic sheeting, too, but the next room had a glass wall instead of a solid one, even if the plastic over the top obscured the view. This place was a fishtank. There was nowhere to hide.

‘You gotta keep moving,’ Johnny insisted.

‘Piss off,’ I hissed. ‘You think Arasaka are bastards? Sure, you levelled a tower and killed a few thousand corpos in the name of free will, but it didn’t do shit about this sort of thing.’

‘Fuck, V. I’m not on about that right now.’ I noticed he wasn’t pacing around, which he did when he got worked up. He was stock still the whole time, like even he was worried about making too much noise. ‘If someone catches you here, you could be in a whole world of trouble, and I couldn’t do much more than watch. And – fuck – I don’t want that to happen.’

‘Johnny, this shit is terrifying,’

‘No kidding. I know you ‘aint gonna leave here without the doll, though. Just get the fuck on with it.'


	4. Chapter 4

‘Come on.’

Johnny’s nagging started again soon after the adrenaline of the back-street ripper clinic worked its way out of her – their – system. It was pretty transparent, but I was feeling generous. Johnny and I had been through something fucking awful. He’d been helpful. Supportive might be a stretch. But either way, I was grateful, and I knew that his nagging was just a sign of relief. I was okay with that.   
‘Is it really that hard?’ He asked. ‘Just one. For me?’

The cigarette case was still mostly full, and there was a little lighter tucked into one corner of it. I hadnt smoked since I was a kid, which was about a second before I decided that I hated it. But it was almost worth it for the fact that Johnny made a noise that could have been straight out of some horny BD, and it made me laugh. 

‘That’s the stuff,’ he sighed.

‘Don’t get used to it.’

He scoffed. ‘Really? The smog in the city is just as bad for you, and you get nothing out of it. Least a cigarette comes with a bit of kick.’

‘I’m not a fan of either.’

‘Ah,’ Johnny said. He leaned backwards until it was his elbows holding him up upright against the railing. ‘Right. Nomad.’

‘You say that like I’m a zoo exhibit.’

‘Well, I’ve not known many nomads who stick it out in the city for long.’

‘I can’t say that I blame them.’

‘It explains a lot.’

I raised an eyebrow. 

Johnny started waving his hand about. He did that when he was trying to explain something, with an open palm, like he was half apologizing for whatever he had to say, although I got a feeling an actual apology from him was rare and far between. ‘You’re a nomad, which means you don’t get how thing work here. The streets have rules about staying in your lane, and keeping your neck to yourself. You go rubbernecking and you’ll quickly run in to big trouble.’

‘You still reckon I shouldn’t have helped Eveline.’

‘All I’m saying is you stuck your neck out where it was an easy target. Just remember it’s not just your neck anymore.’ He dipped his sunglasses down his nose so he could look me in the eye. ‘I’ve been given a second chance, and I’d be a fucking fool if I didn’t take that seriously.’

I flicked the cigarette away, unfinished. I didn’t even bother to stamp it out. I threw it down from the second story, and watched it fade away on the concrete. 

Johnny hissed. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. ‘Fuck you.’


	5. Chapter 5

I didn’t know what to say when Momma Wells gave me Jackie’s bike. I wanted to cry when I thought about the stupid grin he’d had on his face when he turned up with it, revving the guts out of it, making a sceptical of himself. He was a big man, though, so he didn’t open it up the way it was meant to. He drove it like someone who’d been given shoes too small for him, and thinking about that made me want to cry too. 

Fucking Jackie. He was a real legend, even if there were only a handful of us in Night City who knew it. 

I was stuck with another legend, though, and when I decided I was going to take it out, he appeared behind me. I felt the ghost of a hand around my waste, and could see a different stupid grin in the mirror.

‘Fuck, V.’ he called, even though he didn’t need to yell over the wind. He did it anyway. ‘You know what?’

‘What?’

‘I think we might just get along after all.’

I laughed. ‘I’d tell you to hang on, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not that easy to get rid of you.’

Before I got on, I’d rolled my pants as high as I could get them, somewhere over my knee. I didn’t expect to be riding. I didn't have any serious riding gear on. I hadn't been on a bike for ages. Bikes had been my bread and butter for a long time, though, when I was still with the family. Since then, my shins had been replaced with metal guards, and so when I reached Japan town, I took the corners fast, and slide the bike down so far that my knee helped steer through the bend. 

Johnny whooped. 

‘This explains why you didn’t get choked up about your car getting wrecked by fucking Delamaine!’ 

I scoffed. ‘I don’t miss that shit-box. I lived in that thing. It was a house on wheels. That’s no fun.’

I took the next corner just the same. I had to take it close to the gutter and undertake someone minding their own business. I laughed again when they honked a horn at me.


	6. Chapter 6

My Bakker’s gear was in a suitcase in the bottom of my cupboard. As much as it pissed me off to admit Johnny was right, I’d figured that wearing that stuff put me down as an easy mark in town. Jackie had been gentle about it. He said something like ‘Chicca, we need to get you something a bit... cooler, ya know? We got a brand to rep. Brand kickass. No offence amigo, but your gear’s a bit hick.’ The riding pants took a bit to get on now. They were a bit big when I’d first got them, but that was years ago, and that was Nomad way. Hand-me-downs. 

I didn’t even think about Johnny. I jumped a bit to pull them on, and had to wiggle around and stretch my legs in and out before the leather gave in properly. The knee guards were always the worst bit. It was like stepping into boots that went all the way up to your hips. But they were necessary unless I wanted to roam around town in shorts, and Night City was cold. The replacements on my actual legs were for extenuating circumstances. Or in the band lands, when the weather turned so hot that leather riding pants were a one-way ticket to heat-stroke. 

I smiled when I saw myself in the mirror. They were familiar, and I’d always thought – damn – they make my ass look great. 

I turned around to see Johnny leaning up against the windowsill. He had his glasses down around his nose again, and that sly little grin that said far more than any other smile I’d ever seen in my life. 

Fuck. I suddenly felt stupid about all the bouncing around and yanking that had gone on to get my fucking pants on. But Johnny just watched. 

‘You done already?’ he said. ‘I was just starting to enjoy myself.’

'You're an ass.'

'No. That's an ass.'


	7. Chapter 7

The pain was incredible. It was like getting pins and needles in your arm, but in your head, and loud static that makes your ear bleed, but you’re the only one who hears it. Your vision goes, but so does any sense of equilibrium, and it’s like your falling and falling, but over and under and god-knows-where. But then It all went away like I’d fallen back into my body, and when I opened my eyes, the Netwatch runner was dead in front of me, and I was staring straight into his open eyes. 

Johnny stepped right over him, and crouch by my head. He stared me dead in the eye the whole time, no sunglasses, and a deep frown I hadn't seen since he tried to play it cool that one time with that back-street ripper doc bullshit. Then he looked me over slowly. He put a hand out to hold my arm when he did, and I swear, with each day that arm felt more and more real. It was warm, his real hand, and he rubbed my arm a little like he was making sure I was shaken away. 

‘You okay?’ He spoke quietly, gently. I must have really scared him. 

I sat up. There was still a bit of haze, but nothing like what I’d just experienced, so I brushed it aside easier with that comparison. 

Then we were standing mirroring each other, each with our hands on our hips, looking around at the shit we’d stepped into. The netrunner was dead. His equipment was still live. There was security vision all over the mall. None of them seemed to be the camera’s I’d switched off on my way in. He must have had a whole other circuit going. But whatever Animals remained were clearing out. Their best fighter was down. She’d chased me across the mezzanine level and slammed her hammer in the ground and got it stuck. I threw myself behind her and shot out whatever hydroponic shit she was using to maintain all those muscles. But she didn’t nearly flatline me, like this son of a bitch. 

‘What happened?’ I asked. 

Johnny scoffed. ‘Whaddya think? Voodoo’s were blowing smoke. You got duped. They made you they’re goddammed kamikaze drone. I guess that’s your reward for lending them a hand.’

I settled my gaze on Johnny again. That was an old argument – helping folks. But these were folks he had me helping to get to Alt, and so I don’t think he was going to take that jab anywhere further than that. Just as well. I nearly died, and I was feeling weird about it. 

Everything was very quiet. Very still. It felt like we were stuck in a time bubble that was also like Schrodinger’s cat, because I felt alive but also dead, which I guess was my whole deal at that point, but I’d never felt it so intensely. I could be dead right now, I thought. I could be out. Over. Flatlined. That made me two-for-two. That is, two times it could have been game over, but I'd pulled through by pure good luck. Is there an opposite to 'third-time-lucky'? 

‘What now?’ I asked.

Johnny started getting agitated them, with the pacing and the nervous cigarettes. I could see it now, what all that showboating really meant. I was grateful for it, though, because that’s all it took to burst the bubble, and we were back in the present, and I could push aside all the uncomfortable existential bullshit for a bit longer. 

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t fucking like this. You could be dead.’

‘I know.’

‘Then Placide’s face oughta light up light a fucking Christmas tree when you show up alive. C’mon, let’s head to Batty’s and get this shit settled for good.’ He flicked away his cigarette, but also spat on the ground at the dead runner. ‘Grumpy motherfucker... I hope he likes surprises.’  



	8. Chapter 8

‘I’ve been trying to learn how you’re wired this whole time. To know who I’m dealing with.’

My heard was still reeling. I’d been in the net, beyond the black wall. I was getting a headache again, like when Johnny first turned up. Come to think of it, I mused, I hadnt had headaches like I used to. I figured before it was when Johnny stuck around, but then...

‘I’ve realised what your problem is.’

‘...Johnny.’ I rubbed my temples and sat down next to him. ‘Give me a break. Really.’

‘I thought you were unlucky at first, but I kept watching, and I’ve finally got it squared.’

‘I’ve just chatted to your ex. I don’t think you’re in a position to discuss personality problems.’

‘You’re a nomad.’ He seemed determined to plow on. ‘You grew around folks who coddled you. You never had to deal with real people before.’

Okay. I knew I was getting pissed at him when there was a fire starting somewhere in my chest that wasn’t sitting right. He was asking for it.

‘Turns out best you can do is go after Scavs for ennies.’

I sat there for a minute. Johnny had lit a smoke and started pacing, like he did. ‘What the fuck do you want from me,’ I said. ‘I asked you that before, but maybe now you’ll be fucking honest.’

He didn’t even look at me. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you why I want to destroy Arosaka, but I’ll only tell you once. I saw Corps strip farmers of water... and eventually of land. I saw them transform Night City into a machine fuelled by peoples crushed spirits, broken dreams, and empty pockets. Corps have long controlled our lives, taken our lots, and now they’re after our souls.’

I didn’t say anything. The burning started creeping up my throat. 

‘ I declared war not because capitalism’s a thorn in my side or out of nostalgia of an America gone by. This war is a people’s war against a system that spiralled out of our control. It’s a war against the forces of fucking entropy, understand?’ 

He was waving his hands around then, like some kind of deranged preacher. 

‘Do whatever it takes to stop them. Gut ‘em. If I gotta kill, I’ll kill. If I need to take your body, I’ll fucking take it.’

But he didn’t look at me. 

I stood up. I was pretty much dead the same day, and then I walked across the black wall, and I wasn’t going to take this shit anymore. 

‘You’ll take it,’ I hissed. ‘You’ll take my body.’

He only looked at me for a second, before he turned away. ‘Fucking hell,’ he muttered to himself. 

‘You killed thousands of people in that tower explosion. Why should I kid myself that you’d feel any different about getting rid of me.’

‘V-‘

‘No, Johnny. Fuck you. If you’re gonna end me, just get on with it. I’m sick of all this bullshit. Fucking kill me now, or piss off for a while so I can deal with some shit before my body gives out.’ I jabbed at his chest, even though anyone walking by would have seen me jabbing at nothing, and I’m not totally sure I was talking in my head anymore. ‘You keep giving me hell for acting like there are other people in the world worth my time. You know, I think I’m starting to realise what your problem is, too.’

He scoffed. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, actually. Turns our you’re a dick. If you wanna prove me wrong, you’ll fuck off a while.'


	9. Chapter 9

There was a bar a little further downtown than my apartment that I liked. It was never too busy, but also not so quiet that the bar tenders cared to know who you were. It was nice. Afterlife was like walking into a beauty pageant. You had to put your best foot forward the whole time. You never knew who was waiting in the wings with a job. But I wanted somewhere I could wrap myself around a whole bottle of something – fuck knows what- and not care who saw. 

I had a good buzz heading home. The sort where my head was swimming a little, but still keeping above water. Johnny really had pissed off. I was surprised. 

That, of cause, is where things went wrong. I thought that I started to get a headache because I had a hangover coming on early. I stopped somewhere to buy the biggest bottle of soda I could. But something was still thumping, and it was getting worse. 

I was in the same elevator as that first time, when I’d coughed up blood, and I figured it was because I couldn’t deal with talking to Johnny in my head as well as dealing with everything happening around me. But Johnny wasn’t here. He’d shut up for a while. Retreated somewhere. But the headache was coming on. 

The possibility flashed through my head that I was getting reliant on Johnny. Maybe it was like folks who got done in on cigarettes, or something more hard-core, like RPM. If they didn’t get it for a while, after their system got used to it, they went through all sorts of withdrawals. 

By the time I was at my door, I was holding my fist close to my temples and pressing down hard. 

A shower. That’d fix it. 

So I stripped down, but slowly, like an old lady. Except this old lady was shaking their way out of leather riding slacks. 

I leaned my head forward in the shower and let it run over me. It was nice, the pressure, the pushing down, and then I realised my legs were gone and I was sliding down, and I caught myself enough to stop hurting myself on the shower floor. 

Then I was coughing. For a second, I thought I was puking, because that was the normal fair when you’ve drunk too much. But no, it was like before. The blood. The pain. The sinking feeling that something was going very wrong inside. 

The shower turned off. 

Johnny was crouched close, like when the netrunner nearly had me dead. He pushed the wet hair out of my face. ‘You’re a fucking mess,’ he whispered, almost to himself. 

‘I’m dying,’ I whimpered. I didn’t think about, and it sounded fucking pathetic, but there it was. ‘I’m dying alone. That means I did it all wrong, yeah? That’s not how it’s supposed to end.’

He started to pull me to my feet. 

‘Johnny?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Are you touching me? Or am I imagining it.’

‘I dunno, V. It seems pretty real to me.’

I tugged a towel around my shoulders. ‘How does that work?’

‘Fuck knows.’

He steered me towards the bed. ‘Johnny, this shit is terrifying.’

‘No kidding.’

I sat down in my towel. My hair was still dripping everywhere. But then Johnny had another towel and was helping mop up that mess, following the trail of water that had formed over my shoulders and down my back. 

‘For what it’s worth,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He wrapped the towel a little around my head and rubbed gently. ‘I don’t want to do this. Kill you, I mean. This is fucking awful.’

I scoffed. 

‘Watching, I mean. Watching you... I don’t know... fuck-whatever. You know what I mean.’

‘Yeah.’

I put a hand up to feel my hair. It wasn’t dripping anymore. 

‘You feel that?’ he asked. 

I nodded, and lay down. I closed my eyes. 

'...You want me to delta again?'

'...No. No, I think It's worse when you go away, now. Whatever that means.' I opened my eyes a bit, and Johnny hadn't moved. He was still holding the towel. 'Can you stay?'


	10. Chapter 10

‘The Aldacaldo’s had that fuck-off machine built, right? Let’s go check that out.’

We both seemed determined not to talk about last night. I woke up and Johnny was there. After a night’s sleep I started to process things. Before, it hurt when Johnny was around. Now it was the opposite. If there was ever a sign that my situation was getting worse, it was that. But also, I didn’t want to be alone. Not now. Something had just shifted in my life, or it had been shifting for a while and it just shifted enough for me to pay attention to. Something had just shifted between the two of us. 

‘Arent there bigger fish to fry?’ I asked. ‘Or, I guess more to the point, are you going to whinge about wasting time if I start running ‘round the Badlands?

‘You like this hick shit.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Go drive Jackie’s bike too fast and blow some shit up with Militech gear.’

I hadnt gotten off the bed. I’d woken up, looked for Johnny, and sat on the edge. I guess I’d been sitting – thinking – for longer than I thought, because Johnny was trying to send me off on an errand to get things moving. I knew exactly what was going on. Maybe it was something about him being inside my head, or maybe he just wasn’t the enigma he thought he was. 

Then he was close by, leaning up against the wall. ‘Come on...’ he coaxed.

I sighed. ‘Sure.’

‘Fuck yeah.’

‘I’m gonna shower first. Hold your horses.’

‘Need me to towel you off again?’

I could help it. I think it’s because my laugh came out so suddenly and violently that I snorted.

‘Fuck off.’ Here I was thinking we'd respectfully never talk about what happened, for the sake of each other's pride or whatever. 

‘What? That’s the most action I’ve had in years.’

‘You’re a dirty old man.’

‘Pity. I’ll take it. I don’t care. You could put in a bit of fucking effort if you’re gonna feel sorry for me, though.’

‘You’ve been watching too many BDs.’


	11. Chapter 11

‘Mitch,’ I gaped. ‘What the fuck?’

He scooted around the corner fast than I’d ever seen Mitch move before. 

‘Shit- V. I was gonna tell you-‘

‘What. The. Fuck?’

I’d only ever seen a body in the boot of a car in old BD’s, when someone found themselves on the wrong side of a gang, but the old sort of gang, with wise-guy suits and shiny straight-laced shoes. Now the ones in suits were the corpos, and the rest of us war the Night-City brand of eclectic. 

Mitch had his hands up like he was surrendering to something. ‘Hey. V. Lemme explain.’

I’d ridden with Nomad’s nearly my whole life. I’d heard my fair share of dumbassery and crazy half-baked ideas. I’d seen home-made fireworks and people lighting bonfires build on a puddle of petrol that burnt so hot you’d lose your eyebrows at a hundred paces. But seriously.  
Mitch tried to move him on his own, but the dead weight wasn’t cooperating, so I ended up grabbing his legs and tucking him into the drivers seat. Then Mitch sat him upright and did up the seatbelt. He looked a bit confused about what to do with his hands. He couldn’t put them on the wheel without strapping them, and that seemed a step too far towards farce. Instead he tucked them into his lap and closed the door. 

Then we stood a ways back together, with Johnny close at hand. 

‘You wanna say a few words?’ I asked. 

Mitch seemed to think for a while. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I cant think of anything much.’

‘Can I say a few words?’

He nodded. 

I cleared my throat. ‘This may be the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of, but I cant help but think you’ve got the right idea, brother. Go out in a blaze of your choosing.’

‘Amen,’ Mitch muttered. 

The fireball was magnificent. Mitch had packed the car with something a little extra to really get it going. It was like an old Viking funeral. Glorious. 

I don’t know when I started to imagine riding Jackie’s bike the same way – off a cliff, into the same sort of blaze – but that’s where it wondered off to, like an instinct to consider your own mortality when confronted with someone else's untimely death, and then Johnny was in front of me. 

‘Don’t give me that shit,’ he spat. 

I jumped back a little at his sudden appearance. 

Mitch had to call over the roar. ‘Too hot for you?’

I barely heard him, though, because Johnny was on his high horse. ‘Just remember if you do something stupid like this, you’re dragging me down with you. You’re fine giving me shit about being the death of you, but do you really reckon you’d be okay zeroing me like that? Huh?’

I was so surprised by Johnny’s bitterness and anger that I forgot to keep our conversation between us. I think Mitch caught the tail end of ‘-already dead’.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But the poor bastard didn’t want to rot in the dirt. I thought he was kidding, when he said this is what he wanted. But I picked up a shovel, and it just didn't seem right. You gotta follow your instincts, I suppose. I dunno. Do what feels right.'

Johnny was kicking the dirt somewhere a little ways away, angry. 'Fucking bitch.'


	12. Chapter 12

Johnny’s bike could really open up in the Badlands, on a high way that stretched for miles. The wind was loud against my ears, like an explosion that never died down, like the moment that car plummeted into the ravine and flowered into a fire, but stretched on for as long as I kept the throttle. 

It was night, and the headlamps formed a wide funnel in front of me, and driving into it was like driving towards a mirage that kept moving forward, and you never reached it no matter how fast or how far you drove. That’s something I’d seen way out, further from the city. God, I missed it.  
Johnny was still pissed. 

He wasn’t hanging on to my waist this time. He appeared on the road in front of the bike. I think he wanted to make me slow down, but the first time scared the shit out of me, and I turned the bike so sharp to the right to dodge the man on the road that I nearly crashed, and only wrestled it back after a few fucking scary minutes. 

After that I had no problem driving straight through. It was like a game of chicken he wasn’t going to win, because he wasn’t really there. I worried at first because I have definitely felt him. He touched me. He helped dry my hair when I was too fucked to do a thing for myself. But then I passed right through him like he was the mirage, and I’d finally caught up to it. I caught up to it so many times I’d lost count. 

‘Will you fucking stop?’ he yelled. But I didn’t. Not until I saw Night City proper. That was on the edge of the rubbish dump, where I’d been left for dead. It reeked. 

‘Are you gonna tell me why you’ve turned fucking psycho in the past 24 hours?’

‘Me? You started this?’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah! With your ‘you couldn’t fucking kill me if you tried’ bullshit!’

‘You’re the one daydreaming about idealistic nomad death-pacts!’

‘I didn’t mean- I wasn’t-‘ I spat. ‘I’m not gonna fucking do it!’

Johnny turned his back on me and lit a cigarette, and muttered ‘goddamit' under his breath.

‘You’re telling me you’ve never had a flash like that? Your brain running away like that and thinking ‘bout-‘

‘At least when I died before, I died for something. You’re talking about ending it in some fucking stupid way. It’s insane. It’s egotistical.’

I scoffed. ‘You’re lecturing me on ego?’

He didn’t say anything. He just drew long on the cigarette, and blew it out slowly over the dump.

‘Johnny. I’m not gonna do anything. I’ve just died a lot. More than I should have. And I’m gonna do it again before long, I guess. That’s what Vik said, anyway. An d he's, you know... a doctor. He knows what he's talking about,’ I finished, lamely.

He didn’t say anything. Johnny sucked on his cigarette for a long while, staring past the middle-distance – the dump – and into the city lights. 

'He said chances are,' I said, 'It's gonna fucking hurt, too. And It'll just be me, probably. That's not right. You're not meant to be on your own.' I shrugged. 'Maybe that's where ego comes in... maybe I shouldn't think I deserve ending it like that. With family. I thought it was just the way of things. But maybe that aint so.'

Now that he’d stopped yelling at me, I knew he was scared. Maybe it was sharing one brain that mad me so angry. His instinct to all that was to get mad, and then I got mad, and maybe it was some sort of exponential growth like depositing ennies in a high interest account. Amplified feelings. Except Johnny didn’t tell me he was scared. He seemed more worried than scared when it was me suffering and coughing up blood - when I couldn't even stand up in the shower. Somehow since then we'd become 'us' - together - and that meant my dying was Johnny dying, and that penny must have dropped for him. Like how I knew I was dying - I knew that - but the other day I really knew that. The difference was knowing it and feeling it. He was scared because this was his existentialist crisis. He was feeling it. I’d admitted that I was scared before. I said 'I’m fucking terrified'. But that wasn’t Johnny’s way, I suppose. His instinct wasn’t to admit to being scared. It was to get mad as hell. Then I got mad as hell. Amplified. That made some sort of twisted sense, right?

I laughed, a little bitterly. 

‘What?’ He turned and asked. 

‘Johnny Silverhand called me egotistical.’

There was a tense second before he laughed a little too.

'My mum died with family,' I said. I leaned back on the bike. 'Something went wrong when she was in labor, and Dad and a few Aunties and Uncles bundled her up in a van and started driving her to a doctor. But the family camp was a long way away, and she bled out. Dad just got sick, but everyone made it their business to make him comfortable.'

Johnny just sort-of hummed. He clearly wasn't comfortable to talk anymore, because we weren't screaming at each other anymore. But that was okay. That wasn't Johnny's way.

'It's just gonna be me. Cause I don't want anyone here to see me like that. That's a lot to ask from someone. From chooms, I mean. Watching...' I didn't even know if he was listening anymore. 'You do it for family, but it's still fucking sucks.'


	13. Chapter 13

My head was pounding, like when you stand in line to get into a club and you can hear the thrum of bass from inside. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I groaned and opened my eyes slowly. The lights were on, but they were dingy as hell, like they were on their last legs. I traced down from the roof – shitty paint job, mould – down to... fuck. Rogue. 

She had her arms crossed and an amused smile on her face. But a woman like that looking like the cat who ate the canary could mean anything. A powerful woman, with lots of friends in high places, and a few in low places just in case. 

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘V,’ she added, just to make sure I knew that she knew who I was. 

I sat up, and had to do that heavy breathing you do when you reckon you just might throw up. Maybe. Too early to tell. 

‘Okay...’ I mumbled. ‘I assume you know how I got here...’

She laughed. ‘This is a safe house. Johnny had you cross-eyed by the end of the night. He probably would have left you to sleep it off in a gutter somewhere.’

I rubbed my temples. ‘Fuuuuck....’

Johnny scoffed. He was somewhere in the room, but it hurt too much to look up and find him. ‘I would have gotten you home. I’m a gentleman. Always take the ladies home. That makes them feel reeeeal grateful...’

I saw Rogue’s feet appear in front of me, and she crossed them as she leaned against the counter top. It was a one room flat, I figured, when I was game enough to look up a little further and scan around. She reached over to the sink and handed me a bottle of water. 

If I was feeling better I would have bauked at that a little more. It was such a maternal, benevolent gesture from someone like Rogue. Rogue from Afterlife. Fucking Rogue. 

If Jackie could see me now...

‘I wouldn’t let him loose too often, if I were you,’ she said. ‘He was always in a shit-tonne of trouble, and we both know you’ve got enough of that as it is.’

I just nodded, and sucked down the water. ‘What the fuck was he drinking?’

‘The Silverhand special. Tequila: a fuck-load of it.’


	14. Chapter 14

‘Goro! What the FUCK are you doing now?’

There was a pause. Radio silence.

Johnny was keeping pace. ‘You should have zeroed that Arasaka son-of-a-bitch. But no. Saburo’s lapdog asks you nicely to let him live, even though he'd have killed you without a second thought, and now he knows what you look like. He’ll be after you, cause you’re in this up to your neck-‘

‘V. I am sending you coordinates. Be sure that you are not followed. Knock four times.’

‘Goro. This is serious shit. You kidnapped her!’

‘You must trust me. Knock four times.’

I growled in frustration. ‘I’ve got it. Four times.’

‘And ensure that-‘

‘I’m not gonna let anyone follow me, goddamit!’ I hissed between gritted teeth.

I’d walked straight back into the crowds. The Arasaka security was easy enough to spot. They weren’t looking at the parade. They were looking at the crowd, the individuals. They were inspecting, not spectating. I scooted past someone who had take their coat off when they sat down to eat by some nasty smelling food truck, and whisked it away as I went. I slipped it over the top of what I was wearing. There wasn’t much else I could do, except scan for camera’s and keep out of their way. But there’s a trick to that, because you don’t want to look like you’re avoiding something. You need to keep it casual, and that’s a bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. And I didn’t want to just start shutting them down either, because that would draw a map of where I’d been to any netrunner worth their salt. 

I went the long way around to the meet up. I never stopped, though. Neither did Johnny. 

‘You better be ready to take the fucker down,’ he said. ‘This is the closest we’ve got to Mikoshi, and we won’t get a step further if Arasaka decides that you’re corpo enemy No. 1’. 

‘I get it.’

‘I don’t think you do. You left the other one alive on Takemura’s word, because he’s banking on getting back in with the family. Where does that leave you, huh?’

I took a deep breath before I knocked four times. Four steady knocks, but not too loud. The door slid open and Goro pulled me in by the front of the stolen coat. He was holding some heavy iron in the other hand. 

He stared at me long and hard instead of asking me how it went. I started back definitely as proof that I had done it all properly. No one came after me. No tail. 

Then he cleared his throat and shifted a little uncomfortably. ‘I offered her tea.’ He said.

‘...You’re kidding.’


	15. Chapter 15

I’d been in some pretty fucked up situations before, but I’d never had the adrenalin push. The ‘fight of flight’ high that stops you feeling or thinking and things happen like you’re out-of-body or something. I was falling, and then I was dragging myself out of rubble, and pushing shit away with the new gear in my arms that was working overtime. Even in the roar of a collapsing building I could hear them pop and whir, and some of the metal seemed to pop and warp with effort. 

Then I was out, in the clear. I could get onto my knees, and then my feet. I coughed instinctively to clear the dust and shit out of my lungs. 

‘Last chance to get the fuck outta here.’

Johnny was half crouched with me, but he looked like there were two of him, sort of, like one Johnny lay slightly skew over the top of another one, and trying to focus on him had me fall off kilter and stumble onto my knee again. Then I coughed. Again. This time there was blood. 

‘Your brain’s all rattled,’ he said. ‘We gotta move. You can’t check out here.’

‘Takemura...’ I said. ‘He could still be up there.’

The truth was that I understood Goro. I’d felt like a sore thumb in Night City for so long, but Takemura had this intense allegiance to family, for better or worse. I trusted that more than I could explain why. He was working for the family, even if the family couldn’t see it for themselves. He had honourable intentions, and he had faith that they were gonna see that with enough time. 

Johnny knew that’s how I felt about it. I knew that he knew, which sounds petty, but he’d clued into enough of my thinking before that I felt pretty sure in making that assumption. He’d left this particularly train of thought alone, though, like he figured that if he played dumb he could avoid a showdown. We were pretty fucking intimate that way. He knew me better than anyone, and he knew that that sort of allegiance is the sort of thing I’d put my fucking boot heels in for. I’d left the Bakkers because of it. My family. I’d driven a shit box straight across the Badlands and into Night City because of it. I had honourable intentions, and I had faith that the folks I left behind were gonna see that with enough time. 

The problem was I couldn’t see straight. The hallway up was filled with Arasaka heavies, and then there was a stream of occupants evacuating. When the gunfire started, however, that stream seemed to bypass us and find another way, like streams do.

So I was pinned down, without the distraction of civilians, bending around cover to shoot aimlessly, when these fuckers were armoured enough that aimlessly was more than useless.

I sucked in a breath. I wasn’t getting to Takemura. My only chance was to make a run for it, before back up came, while there was still a crowd evacuating. Get the fuck out of dodge. But then Johnny was taking cover beside me. 

‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. 

He put a hand over mine, finger on the trigger. 

‘The fucking chip’s malfunctioning, so maybe this’ll-‘

He popped his head out of cover for a second before ducking back down. Then a second time, and automatically I came with him. It was like his movements were magnetic, and I was being dragged along. My hand spun around, and his hand seemed to guide it enough that it locked on the nearest Arasaka fucker, and nailed him. Then the next two, straight after.

Bang.

Bang.

‘Holy shit’ I said. 

‘Keep moving,’ he ordered.

I stumbled down the hall as best I could, and Johnny was close by, almost holding me up by my gun arm sometimes. I didn’t even see the next one coming, but my pistol swung round on the corporate soldiers. Magnetic. 

Bang. 

This time I fought back, though. When you’re full of adrenaline, it’s like everything moves too fast for your brain to catch up, so it feels automatic and involuntary. But my brain had caught up by then, and moving involuntarily was alarming, and so I fought back. Involuntarily. 

What a mind-fuck. 

The shot went wide.

‘Stop,’ Johnny growled. ‘Just let me fucking do it, and quit thinking so much.


	16. Chapter 16

‘Who the fuck stays in a hotel like this?’ Johnny was keeping watch at the window. ‘I mean it. We’re a few miles from Night City, so anyone leaving town would just keep going. Anyone heading into town would stick it out a little longer. Do they make rooms like this just for fucking losers like us?’

I’d been laying as still as possible on the bed, staring straight up at the ceiling. If I didn’t move, my headache started to fade. It was like tip-toeing around someone and trying to not wake them up, but in my head. At least I could see straight again. 

Johnny was trying to make conversation. I guess I knew him pretty fucking well too. He didn’t like quiet. Or waiting. He was making himself feel better by talking shit, and by being pissed off at something. Even something as dumb as the hotel. He’d already poked through the fridge and had a go at the freebies there. Complimentary water, because what came out of the tap would probably make you lose your shit out of both ends. But Johnny’s problem was that it wasn’t enough to keep a cactus in the desert alive. Then he was looking at the biohazard of a bathroom, then the way the window frames were rotting and the fact that the seal was so dry it was a miracle the glass was still upright in the pane, and that the room was as secure as a cardboard box. Yadda yadda. 

The angry bitching wasn’t so annoying once you understood what it was really for. 

He went quiet for a while when he’d run out of steam. 

‘You feeling better?’ he asked. 

‘Yeah,’ I said. I moved a little, sitting up on my elbows. My head was still swimming a little, but it was definitely better. 

‘Maybe you should take one of those pills,’ Johnny shrugged. ‘I’d piss off a while, but it might help you see straight, at least.’

I scoffed. ‘Fuck no.’ I spun around to sit off the side of the bed. ‘I’m fine.’

‘What?’ he smirked. ‘Reckon you’ll miss me?’

‘You pulled my ass out of the fire back there. You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Yeah, however the fuck that worked.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘Maybe it’s like Hellman said. Maybe you have more influence over me than I thought.’

Johnny shifted a little so that he was facing me, instead of out the window. ‘And does that scare you?’

I shook my head. ‘You saved my life, and you went and saved Takemura. I know you did that for me.’ He made a resigned sort of noise, like he wasn’t happy about that part of the story. ‘Thanks, Johnny.’

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Don’t mention it. But we aint out of this yet.’


	17. Chapter 17

The gist of it all was that Hanako needed time to move her pieces into place, and that she’d contact me for a meeting when it was all a sure thing. We were on her timetable, and that wasn’t sitting well with Johnny. Or me, for that matter. I wasn’t going to wait around to be summoned like a trained dog. 

That’s when Johnny laughed and said something about liking me more and more each day, and then I wondered if that was sign that I was taking on more of Johnny’s psyche than I realised. A distraction from that train of through was the next logical solution. Johnny had done right by me, and I didn’t want to get bogged down in the pros and cons of it all right then and there. He’d told me to stop thinking so much anyway, that night he saved both my ass and Takemura’s. 

Stop thinking so much. 

The politicians were a good choice. Arasaka was less likely to come in guns-blazing if I was a complicated target. The more gang-bangers I got friendly with, the more dirty laundry I had in my pocket, the more complicated getting rid of me became. If I was just some dirt girl from Haywood, I’d have been dead already, for sure. 

River – however – complicated things more than I was expecting. 

We were in some market uptown chasing leads, and I thought – for the briefest of seconds, before I checked myself – that the coat he was wearing – the leather one, brown, with the fur trim – made his shoulders look ~real~ good... I tried to stamp that thought out. It was like the glow plug in an engine, and I wasn’t gonna let it get anything going. Johnny wouldn’t have been able to help himself, though. I knew it. He wasn’t a nosey bitch, but he was up there amongst it all, and it was bound to happen. 

‘V...’ he sighed. He leaned heavily over a counter top – someone selling second-hand security systems, which sounded just as dodgy as it looked – and ran his hands through his hair. 

‘What?’ I demanded. The man was good looking. How many times had Johnny leered at girls? Fuck it, he’d leered at me. Fuck. Why was I trying to defend myself? That in itself was a bad sign. 

‘...Don’t make me fuck a cop.’

‘I haven’t made you do a damn thing.’

‘But, this guy. I’ve seen the look a thousand times. I’ve given it a few times too. He wants in.’

‘Nothing but godammed class from you,’

‘I’m serious. He wants more than a bit of help on this case.’

‘He’s a nice guy,’

‘You don’t want a nice guy,’

‘Says you.’

‘Yeah, says me. Trust me, for fucks sake. Don’t do it.’


	18. Chapter 18

The BD hurt – sure – but it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to my head hurting by that point. I could see why an old man with a bad heart and more pounds to his name than was healthy packed it in afterwards, though. 

River was scared, though. He was real freaked to see me on the ground, breathing heavy, and not in the usual way you do after watching a BD. He was more scared when I tried to get up and misaimed heading out the doorway, and bumped into it with my shoulder. Then I nearly tripped up some stairs on the way out the club. 

He had to corner his partner and have a difficult conversation, and it was weighing heavy on him when we got back to his car. He said he was going to take me to a doctor, first and foremost. He wasn’t going to have permanent brain damage weigh on his soul, too. 

‘I really am okay,’ I tried to convince him to leave it be, but damn, he was persistent. I eventually conceded, so long as we went to *my* doctor. 

Vik never looked happy to see me anymore. He had a look on his face that made him seem more tired and older than ever, just in the last month or so. Fuck. It’d only been a month or so, right? Misty was floating around nearby. She’d spotted something heavy on him the minute we walked in the door. She was good like that, and he had a mug of some kind of flower-forward tea soon after we arrived. River smiled and tried to be polite about it, and that made me smile a bit, despite everything. He was a sweet guy. There weren’t many of his breed in Night City. 

I settled in Vik’s chair and he sighed. ‘What am I looking for?’ It was quiet, though. He didn’t want River to hear. 

I shook my head with a sort of resignation. ‘Long story short, I stuck my nose into a police investigation, and some BD that was invented to fry someone’s circuits tried to do its job.’

I noticed Vik was sitting with his back to River. He didn’t know him. He didn’t know how much he knew. So I tried to explain, in just so many words. 

‘River here is just worried he’s caused me some kind of long term damage, and I just need to put his mind at ease so he can go on with his life.’

Vik nodded. He did a scan anyway, and his brow creased, even though he finished with a prescription to stay put in that chair for an hour, just to keep an eye on me, and then a day or rest should have me right as rain. 

River seemed satisfied. ‘Thanks, V,’ he said on his way out. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’ He handed his mug back to Misty after a concerted effort to finish it all. Someone had taught him some good manners. See? Sweet guy.

I smiled and tried to wave him away like it was no big deal. ‘I’ll get my pay from the Peralezes and put my feet up a while. Don’t worry bout me.’

But Vik didn’t move until he was gone. 

‘I suppose it’s no news to you that your sight is on the way out.’

‘...Yeah.’

Then he tried to tell me something about my synapses and nervous system, but I didn’t listen much. I didn’t need to. I knew. I could fucking feel it. 

And Johnny wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I knew he felt a lot like River did, but didn’t have the luxury of being lied to.


	19. Chapter 19

‘Up there,’ Johnny pointed. ‘That one. I heard Kerry bought a buck-a-mansion on that cliffside.’

‘And, what? Am I supposed to break in? He’ll think I’m some deranged groupie!’

‘Nah,’ Johnny waved his hand. The cigarette waved with it. ‘I’ll find a way to let him know it’s me. Like with Rouge.’

‘Because that went so well.’

‘Yeah, it did. She believes us, doesn’t she? I call that a win.’

I didn’t get it yet. ‘Why Kerry Eurodine, though? I get going to see Rogue, but what’s Kerry got to do with anything?’

Johnny didn’t say anything for a minute. There were few times when Johnny actually thought about what he was going to say before he did, and when that happened, it took him a minute. It’s how I knew that something was real important to him. He knew that he could get in the way of himself, and he was gonna try his best godammit.

It was kind of sweet. I could have laughed. Not many people in this world would have ever thought of Johnny Silverhand as kind of sweet. 

‘Rumour has it,’ he said. ‘Kerry’s depressed. Attempted suicide.’

And just like that, we found ourselves on the edge of a prickly issue. Johnny had freaked out at me before, when I’d found something admirable in the way Mitch had sent one of his brothers out in a blaze of glory. 

‘...You wanna help him.. Okay.’

He turned around a little surprised. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You know he’s gonna have some preem security up on that hill.’

‘I know.’

‘And you’re still game.’

I nodded. I didn’t move thought. Nor did he. We just watched each other, on the edge of road, where the scrub started crawling up the hill side until it met tall fences and manicured gardens.


	20. Chapter 20

Kerry handed me a heavy glass of Tequila. Heavy, as in very full. 

I laughed a little looking at it. I couldn't help it. Who drinks this much Tequila?

‘Johnny said you’re come back might be a little... rough.’

I didn’t drink from the tequila straight away. I put it to my temples first: something cold to fight back against the migraine.

‘Yeah. Something like that.’

Kerry looked kind of uncomfortable. Which was ironic, really, because he looked real comfortable in his silk bathrobe. But he also looked just as you would expect someone to when they were caught short and entertaining strangers. 

I did my best to choke down some Tequila – like swallowing pills – for the sake of manners. Like River with Misty’s tea. It’s about being a good guest, right? 

‘I’ll get out of your hair,’ I said like a sort of apology. ‘Sorry I sort of... barged in.’

To my surprise, Kerry laughed. He had a sort of barking laugh. Quick, and loud.

‘You are not what I expected. I can already tell.’ He put a hand over mine and slowly pushed the tequila back onto the table. It was his way of saying 'no offense taken', and reached over the other side of the table – which was just covered in shit, by the way. His cleaner mustn't have been round for a while – and grabbed a bottle of water. I did my best to not look too pathetic but swallowed it down much easier. 

‘You don’t have to go anywhere. I was gonna order some food in. Fucking starved.’

I didn’t know what to say. Was that a question?

‘Uh, sure.’

‘What do you feel like?’

‘....Whatever you reckon.’

‘Well, I want a fucking pizza.’

Then Kerry was on the phone to someone ordering pizza, and I finished my bottle of water, and was wondering how the fuck I got to be in Kerry Eurodine’s house, on his couch, in a mansion looking out over Night City, about to eat pizza.

What. The. Fuck. 

I looked over to Johnny, who had made himself very comfortable on the back of the other couch, looking straight at me, and was grinning that shit-eating grin he had when he reckoned he’d done something right. 

‘So, we’re getting Samurai back together,’ I said. ‘And I’m gonna eat pizza with Fucking Kerry Eurodine.’

‘Looks like.’

And then when the memory of all those plans – getting the band back together – settled into my mind, I realised that Johnny really had been the one to make all that happen. Kerry had asked him about me. He said ‘Why do you look like some small-time kleptopunk from the Afterlife’, to be exact. But Johnny had said I was a good girl, and just needed a bit of looking after, and Kerry laughed and said that was what he used to say about that fucking Porche he loved so much. 

So it was charity pizza. 

‘I’m a *good girl*? Really?’

Johnny was already sucking on a cigarette. He tipped it my direction, like you’d tip someone a drink when you were toasting them. 

‘You’re my girl. Just accept the free goddamed pizza.’


	21. Chapter 21

I’d gotten shitty at the ammo press when I thought it wasn’t working right. I’d used them before. There aren’t much in the way of ammo traders in the Badlands, so nothing new there. They could be a little fiddly, sure, but I was having real trouble with it, and figured something was out of alignment. Something was wrong with the press. But then I realised that it was my hands that weren’t doing what they were supposed to do. They weren’t moving right. The bullets weren’t setting into clips straight, and so I tried to do it by hand, but it wasn’t working. 

You know the saying about the straw that broke the camel’s back? Well, I threw that clip: out of the little armory-closet I had set up, and across the apartment. The bullets scattered and made a real racket. Then I threw some other shit for good measure. I started with the little shit that was causing me so much trouble, but I couldn’t pick it up. Each time my fingers tried to grasp onto it, they wouldn’t, and then I tried looking real hard at it and my vision went blurry, and so I picked up something bigger – a long scope for the rifle – and something else – I stopped paying attention. 

But that’s the long story that explains why I felt so apprehensive about the Samurai gig. 

Kerry was a good guy, turns out. That made me three-for-three on finding something nice about a presumed-to-be-asshole. He had checked in on me a few times in the last two hours. Especially after he bought out a round of Tequila shots and I held mine in almost a full fist to keep it under control. 

But that wasn’t including the other times he’d checked up on me, on other days. He’d taken me out for coffee once, and invited me back round to his house because he’d bought a Rayfield on auction for the hell of it, and wanted my opinion on it. ‘You’re a nomad, right. You live for this shit,’ was his excuse. I didn’t have much of one, because it was more tech than I’d ever seen on a car. You couldn’t access any part of it to check it out and see what it was made of. They sealed the whole thing off in form-fitted carbon fibre. But then he’d tried to pry the covers off the engine bay to let me at it, and some alarm went off. We ended up waiting in the house for a technician to come by and fix it, but I swear Kerry had been five minutes from driving the thing off the cliff face. 

I took him out on a real bit of kit after that. Like Johnny, that first time we went on Jackie’s bike. Turns out the mountain road up around his place was good fun, and I thought Kerry might have screamed himself hoarse. But that throat replacement was worth its salt. 

I liked Kerry. 

I snuck out to the bathroom to swallow down Misty’s magic pill: the one that handed over the reigns for a while. 

Johnny stood squeezed into the cubical with me. 

I had the pill in a vice grip, too. I wasn’t trusting myself anymore. I wasn’t trusting my body. 

But also, I was mad as hell that Johnny was confident that he was going to be able to walk onto that stage and shred guitar like it was 2020. 

This was it. The turning point. When the body was better in his hands than mine. It didn’t feel like mine anymore. I was disassociating, which sounds fucked up in some psychiatrical way. 

‘You having second thoughts?’ he asked. But he was shitty about it, like he was annoyed I was getting so worked up about it all. So much effort had gone into getting this gig together, and I was in a bathroom having second thoughts. 

So, with a fuck-you sort of attitude, I swallowed it down. 

‘For Kerry, right?’ I said. An angry party of me wanted to tell Johnny that I wasn't doing it for him. But the truth is that I was just fucking scared. Again. And I'd been able to tell Johnny before when I was scared. But something was changing, and I just felt so angry about the whole thing. Like Johnny: like before, when I realised that he found it much easier to be pissed off than afraid. 

But then I was out of the picture for a while, and that train of thought faded away for the rest of the night.


	22. Chapter 22

Johnny got me home and into bed, which was better than the last time. But replacing the epic hangover I’d suffered in front of Rogue was a new development. 

It felt like someone was sitting on my chest. 

I wasn’t even out of bed and I felt out of breath. Johnny sat beside me, smoking. 

‘Reckon you need to see Vik again,’ he said. 

‘What the fuck is he gonna do about it?’

He shrugged. ‘Make sure you’re getting enough oxygen, right? That’s something doctors do. Otherwise your brain cells are gonna die real quick.’

‘Maybe it’s all your fucking cigarettes,’ I sat, fanning smoke away from my face. 

Johnny gave me a side long look that spoke volumes. Specifically volume 1: Don’t be a fucking idiot.

‘I’m not going back to Vik.’ I only got that far before I had to take a deep breath. I felt like I’d run a marathon. ‘He cant do anything, and-‘ another breath ‘-he knows it.’

Johnny leaned back on the bed, onto his elbows, and took another long, thoughtful drag. He didn’t get to add anything before someone was calling me. 

‘V,’ Takemura said, in the way he did, which sounded like it was meant as a hello. ‘I hope you are well.’ Why did he begin conversations like you’d begin a fucking letter? 

‘Goro.’ Deep breath. ‘Tell me you’ve got good news.’

He nodded. ‘Yes. You would be surprised as to how much the situation has changed since I saw you last.’

‘Good news, I hope?’

‘Yes. Hanako-sama is almost ready to proceed. She asked me to ensure you were also prepared.’

Deep breath. ‘I haven't agreed to anything yet.’

‘Have you had any trouble with Arasaka?’

‘No. Actually, I’ve been a bit worried about how-‘ Deep breath. ‘-I got off easy.’

Goro frowned. ‘You do not sound well.’

‘I’m fucking dying, Goro.’ Deep breath. ‘What do you expect?’

He paused for a moment. ‘Do you help?’

‘I need a fucking miracle.’

‘Well, it is no accident that you have ‘got off easy’, as you say. But do not mistake that for being beyond Arasaka notice. As I said, Hanko-sama is almost ready to make her move.’

I was distracted by Johnny. Up and about. Pacing.

‘Right, thanks Goro. I have to go.’

‘Take care of yourself, V.’

Johnny didn’t wait for him to finish saying goodbye. ‘So is this the fucking plan, then? You’re gonna go along with this bitch?’

‘Johnny-‘

‘She’s using you as a stage prop for whatever fucking corpo back-stabbing-‘

‘Johnny!’

‘Fucking what?’

I was getting angry, and that was making it all much worse. It was hard to breath, and there are some hard-wired alarm bells that not being able to breath properly set off in your brain, let me tell you. This is what kept happening between us, though. An out-of-control emotional spiral, when I got scared or pissed and he felt the same and it just got worse and worse. 

But Johnny waited for me to get my breath back, and calm the fuck down. Then I wanted to make sure I got it right. I wanted to get what I was going to say right in my headfirst. Like fucking Johnny.  
Shit. It was all happening too fast. 

‘Listen. I sure am fucking desperate. Anyone can see that. But don’t you think that’s something worth betting on?’

He stopped pacing. 

‘I mean, I’m a hair’s breadth from fucking Hanako Arasaka. I’m got priceless research suck in my head. We know Arasaka’s watching, but I feel sure as hell there are other vultures watching too. Someone’s gonna want to make a deal, and it’ll be some scumbag who’ll wait until-‘ It was getting easier to breath. It was easing up. Thank God. It was like the rest of it, coming and going, which was a bit of comfort. ‘-I’m ready to do just about fucking anything else.’

Johnny leaned over to put his hand on his knees and look me in the eye. It was one of those looks that spoke volumes. Specifically volume 2: You *are* a fucking idiot.

‘You don’t get it. You think you’re gonna play that game with Arasaka?’

‘I haven’t agreed to anything.’

‘You don’t have to. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a fucking mile. You think Mexico agreed to the shit that happened there in the war? Fuck no. It just happened.’ 

He studied me for a while.

‘Besides, you’re plan still assume you’re gonna get fucked by someone. Inviting them to do it. I’d call that about as desperate as you can get. Ground zero desperation.’

‘Yup,’ I admitted. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

He scoffed.


	23. Chapter 23

I couldn’t get the tubing off. Detached. Whatever. The poor kids head was braced in, but he heard us, and felt something tugging around. 

I tried to calm him down. ‘We’re getting you help. It’ll be alright.’

My fingers kept slipping on the clasps. River had just ripped the thing open, but I couldn’t do that either. My hands wouldn't grip. 

When a hand came around to help, to get the clasp open, I thought it was Johnny. He was taking over, like he did before. But then I looked round and River was beside me. 

‘You got him?’

I nodded. 

‘I’m gonna check over there.’

I shushed him the best I could. I managed to get some more of the shit off his face. Not quite all of it. He was still strapped in. But I could see his face, and his hair, and I stroked it the way I remember Dad stroking my hair when I was little. When I was sick or whatever. I think sometimes when I was sad about Mum. 

‘It’ll be alright,’ I said again. I only looked up when River was coming back, but before I could ask if there was another kid to help he shook his head, but not a way that said ‘no’. It was more grave than that. 

One of them didn’t make it this far. 

With River over by Randy - calling in trauma team, calling cop buddies, calling everyone – I stroked the head of a kid I didn’t know. He was crying. I don’t know if he was shaking because he was scared or relieved or because it got damned cold out there at night, but I took my jacket off and put it over him like a blanket.

‘Talk to him,’ Johnny said quietly. It was him this time, not River. I looked over to make sure. 

‘Hey-‘ I started, lamely. ‘Hey, my name’s V. I- I know you cant talk right now, so don’t try, it’s okay. But you’ll be outta here soon and you can tell me all about who you are. But I’m V. My real name is Valarie, but no one calls me that. No one ever has except my Mum. Just once. When she told my Dad that that is what I was gonna be called. No one had the heart to tell her that I wasn’t much of a Valarie.’

I looked up at Johnny. Is this what me meant, because it felt fucking dumb to me. 

He nodded. 

‘But some people just look like they suit that names, right? I bet you’ve got a nice name. You look like a nice kid to me. I bet it starts with a J, yeah? You look like a J-name to me. Am I right?’ he shook his head just a little. ‘Oh, so maybe an L. Am I getting warmer?'


	24. Chapter 24

As it turned out, taking Kerry out on Jackie’s Arch was a mistake, because he sold the Rayfield, and then called me to come see the Apollo he’d bought. 

I knew what model it was. I’d seen it win the Prix last year, at the Coyote with Jackie. I knew how fast it was meant to go. 

‘Kerry,’ I said. ‘You realise these showcase models come with limiters, right?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, it wont go as fast as all that because they put limiters on it. Only the ones the professionals drive are meant to go that fast.’

‘...Fuck!’ He only looked pissed off for a second though, before he locked back on to me. ‘Do you know how to fix that?’

‘Maybe? I’ve never done it before, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t figure it out.’

He clapped his hands together. ‘Great!’

‘Hey,’ Johnny appeared nearby. ‘Don’t let him do shit to this bike. Every time Kerry drove, we ended up in a fucking ditch.’

‘So I’ll buy him a fucking helmet. Calm down.’

We started at it, with more success than the day we tried to crack open his Rayfield and take a look. I told Kerry that Johnny was worried about him driving it, and Kerry told him to fuck off, and then Johnny was laughing, which was nice, because things had been pretty tense for a few days. But then when things got fiddly, I handed the tools over to Kerry. 

‘See that,’ I pointed. ‘It talks between the engine and the rev counter. My guess is that’s what they use to choke it. If you pull it out of the bracket, we can see what wiring and shit we gotta deal with.’

‘You want me to do it?’

‘Yeah, Kerry-‘ I tried my best to sound like it wasn’t a big deal. ‘My hands don’t work real well right now. I keep dropping shit and they just... don’t do what I tell them to.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah, look, we both know what’s going on here.’ I tried to wave the issue off. ‘I know fuck-all about nervous systems and brain synapses or whatever, but I can help you with this, so don’t worry about it, okay?’

‘V, this is really fucked up.’

‘I know.’

‘And I’m spending money on this shit-‘

‘Kerry, it isn’t the sort of thing you can throw money at.’

‘You said Arasaka, right? It cant be that hard to pay someone off to-‘

Johnny sighed. ‘You’re gonna have to explain it to him,’ he said. ‘He won’t let it go otherwise.’

It was pretty late by the time we’d both mostly run out of things to say. The Apollo was forgotten, and we’d sat looking out over Night City from a couch he’d dragged onto his balcony. He’d bought out a case of 60-year Scotch. 

‘Do you just go to these auctions to swing your dick around?’

Johnny was sitting with his legs over the side of the balcony, with his back to us. ‘He never needed a fucking excuse to do that.’

‘This is what I mean,’ he said. ‘There’s gotta be something I can do. What's the use of all the goddamed Eddies in the world if I cant do something good with them.'

‘This is pretty good,’ I tipped my drink at him. He didn't look any happier being flippant about it like that, so I put my head on his shoulder. ‘To be honest, it’s just been pretty great hanging out.’

He put his arm around me and settled back on the couch. ‘Johnny was right. You are a good girl.’

‘That makes me sound like a fucking kid.’

‘Well, you are a kid.’

‘You were playing Rainbow Cadenza when you were my age.’

Kerry laughed. ‘You know, If you had been around in those days, fuuuuuuck...’

‘What?’

‘Johnny woulda been sniffing around after you.’

Johnny scoffed. ‘Tell him to fuck off.’

‘Johnny reckons you should fuck off.’

Kerry laughed again. ‘Well, only ‘cause he knows it’s goddamed true.’

‘You’re a dirty old man.'

'Tell him I aint your thing,' Johnny said, and dipped his glasses down onto the bridge of his nose to add just a touch more asshole to whatever he had to say. 'I aint a cop.'


	25. Chapter 25

‘Don’t go up there with him.’

Johnny sounded like he was sick of telling me I was a fucking idiot. I was sick of telling him to cut me some slack. 

‘Look: I just want to feel like a fucking human for a little while. If that means I’m gonna climb a water tower and let some guy put his hand under my shirt and grab my tits for a while then I’m gonna do it.’

‘You’re not a godamned teenager, and you and I both know what this is really about.’

And I guess I did. Because River kissed me, and he did it all romantic-like, with a palm against my check, and being all gentle with his bottom lip stuck out. He tasted like paprika and tomato. I got out of breath pretty quick. I tried to push through, but even the climb up the tower had me feeling fucked. Though I’m not sure the heavy feeling in my chest was just because I was out of breath. I tried to push through it a little more when I realised that I was having a hard time feeling River touch me. His lips. His hands. It’s like my skin had grown thicker, and his being gentle wasn’t making it through to whatever nerves sat underneath waiting for him to touch me.

Johnny had shouted back to me – when I ignored him – that I was a walking, talking corpse. He said ‘And don’t forget it.’

I was mad, so I kissed River anyway. When things got a bit heavier, though – when River’s hands started up my waist – I stopped. 

‘-Wait.’

‘Shit. I’m sorry.’

‘No. It’s okay. But. River, I gotta be honest with you.’

And I told him that he had no business starting something up with me. He had a family. I had a shit-storm of corpo conspiracy hanging over my head. I told him enough that he shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. 

‘...You could call it cop intuition, but I figured something was up. Something you couldn’t really talk about.’

I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat. ‘Yeah. And even now I’ve only just scratched the surface. There’s no way I can tell you everything cause, well...’

‘...Fuck.’

‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Don’t be. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.’

‘I just- I dunno- I look at this place with Joss and the kids and it’s so great. I could really fuck this up for you.’ 

He looked like he wanted to argue back and say something like ‘No, I wouldn’t let that happen’, but we both knew that wasn’t the reality of the situation.

‘I don’t want to put you in that position. Fuck, maybe I already have.’ I started to get the Silverhand itch. That’s what I figured I’d call the awkward moment when things got heavy and I felt like I had to move, stand, pace, smoke. Just do fucking something. ‘I should go.’

I drove back to the city. Johnny had been trying to look out for me when he told me I didn’t want a nice guy, because that made all of that so much harder. River really was a nice guy about the whole thing. He was trying to look out for me when he reminded me that I was a dead woman walking, in more ways than one. 

It still fucking sucked. 

But when we got home, It wasn’t River I was preoccupied with. I leaned over the vanity in the bathroom and ran my hand under the water. Hot, as far as it would go. Then cold. Then I tried up my arm. 

‘You can’t feel it properly anymore, right?’

I nodded. Johnny leaned on the sink next to me. 

I gave up and turned the tap off, and dried my arm on a towel. I didn’t realise I was crying about it until Johnny stood in front of me, and took the towel from my hand, and wiped my cheeks. 

He put his hand on my cheek. The real one. Flesh and blood.

It was warm. 

‘You feel that?’ He asked quietly.

I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat for the second time that night. ‘Yeah.’

It felt warmer than the water had. 

When I lay down in bed, I lay flat on my back and closed my eyes. My apartment was never quiet. I could hear the city all around. It buzzed and argued and scratched and pounded and carried on all night and all day. But damn did it feel lonely laying there listening to it all. 

I didn’t even have to open my eyes to know that Johnny was sitting next to me. It’s like when people - actual alive people – came near you and you could just sort of *feel* it. 

He touched my cheek with his other hand, the metal one. But it was with the back of his hand, gently. 

‘You feel that?’

I nodded. 

It felt colder than the water had.


	26. Chapter 26

I stopped listening to Hanako after a while. Things started slipping sideways, and goddamned could I feel it. 

‘You need to get the fuck out of here,’ Johnny demanded. He was talking over the top of her, but he didn’t care. I didn’t care. He was right. ‘If you fall over here, they’ll scoop you off the floor and take you with them. You gotta walk out on your own two feet if we’re gonna get out of this.’

I tried to tune back into Hanako. I needed to buy myself time. I needed an excuse to walk away for now. 

‘Fuck!” Johnny was rambling. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have come here! What did I say? Give them an inch, they’ll take fucking everything!’

I got into the elevator and the doors shut. I tilted forward and rested my head on the door. 

‘Fucking help me, then.’ I hissed. 

I felt Johnny put his hand on the small of my back and pull me upright by tucking an arm under mine. We might have looked like some weird tango partnership if anyone else had been able to see it.   
‘Just look forward and don’t think about it. When you think about why this works it doesn’t, so fucking stop it.’

And I did my damned best, but I blacked out somewhere and woke up on Vik’s table. I woke up with the whole nine-yards, too. I couldn’t feel much. It was like when you sit down for too long and your ass and legs to numb, and it’s uncomfortable, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. I was breathing heavy. My head swam, and pounded, and I couldn’t see straight. I tried to look Vik in the eye, but his eyes seemed to move around too much to catch them. 

His prognosis was that I was fucked. 

‘You gotta make some decisions here,’ he said. ‘And I can’t have anything to do with them. I can’t, V. Don’t ask me to.’

Misty was hovering nearby. She put her hands on Vik’s shoulders. She was trying to help him through this. 

Johnny was away from all of us, but he was there. And he followed me to the roof, and waited for Misty to leave. I felt a little bad that I wanted her to leave. I didn’t want to have seen Vik again. I told myself I wouldn’t. Extenuating circumstances, I guess. 

Then he waited a little longer. I knew that kind of pause. Johnny was trying to figure out how he was going to say what he wanted to say. 

‘You fucking scared me.’ He said. ‘I could feel you slipping sideways, and – shit – it was fucking terrifying.’

There was no anger in his voice. He wasn’t getting pissed off to help deal with it all. He was just being honest, like how I used to just be honest with him. When I was knee deep in scav shit or whatever. 

I could have laughed. I guess it goes both ways. And that's exactly what I had felt. Sideways. 

‘I’m still here,’ I said. 

‘For now.’ He was uncomfortable, though, being this honest. ‘You should call anyone you want to say goodbye to. This is gonna be high risk now.’

‘....I don’t wanna call anybody.’

‘Not even the cop?’

‘....No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.’


	27. Chapter 27

‘Just think. It all started in a fucking land fill.’

‘And then you tried to kill me.’

‘Well, I’m trying to save your sorry hide now.’

He stood up from where he was, sitting over the balcony. Johnny liked standing close to the edge of high places. I’d noticed that. I hadn't paid much mind to it though, because it’s not like he could die right now. Not properly. But then there was his freak out when I thought – for just a moment – about going out in a big ball of fire, and how he’d sidetracked everything to reconnect with Kerry at the rumour that he was depressed enough to really do himself in. 

And then I felt dumb that it took me so long to figure all that out. 

He sat next to me, in the rickety plastic chairs that were up here. I figured Jackie bought them up. For him and Misty. And the one I was sitting in was warn in the back legs where Jackie probably swung on them, and they had buckled under his weight and over time. 

Fucking Jackie. He had made his mark in Night City. Just no in the way he imagined it. 

‘You can let me do that,’ Johnny said. ‘You can let me try, at least.’

Our arm rests were right next to each other, but our hands weren't touching. When Johnny sat next to me, he didn't touch me. On purpose, I guess. 

‘You could take Arasaka’s deal, but then you’ll be handing over your soul to them, and I think we both know you’ll end up with the short end of that.’

I just nodded. 

‘There’s the tarmac rats, I suppose. But you like them too much. And an all-out assault on Arasaka? Like I said: High risk.’

I turned to look him in the eye. I was glad he wasn’t wearing those fucking glasses, so I couldn’t see how pathetic I looked. 

‘I like you, too.’

He scoffed. ‘Rogue and me, we’re the best chance. We’ve done it before.’

He looked back at me. 

‘Let me do this. Fuck, V. I don’t want you to die. Not for me.’ He shrugged. 'I 'aint fucking worth it.'

I put my hand over his. I don't know how I could feel it, or how it was possible that I could squeeze it, but I did. And I know there was no fucking shoulder there to put my head on, but I stopped thinking about that shit and just did it. 

I'd seen into Johnny fucking Silverhand's mind, and I'd seen a lot of fucked up shit. But I'd never seen him just hug someone. Really tight. Because he bundled me up and pulled me into his lap, and put his hand through my hair and I swear to God he kissed my forehead. No one can tell me otherwise. Because he said 'You're my girl' when his lips were in my on my skin, and I felt that shit more than I heard it.


	28. Chapter 28

I woke up in a pool of cold water. 

I spluttered and splashed and took a minute to figure it all out.

Fuck. 

Mikoshi.

I hauled myself out, but my clothes were heavy with water, and it streamed off me and onto the walkway. 

I ripped whatever shit was connected to my head. 

I knew I was dying, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. Johnny would have been disappointed with anything less. 

And Rogue. 

Fuck. 

Rogue was dead. Johnny said she was dead. 

I stripped off my jacket, and my boots, which were weighing me down. Waterlogged. Leaving a puddle with each step I took. 

I flung my hair back out of my face. 

What I didn’t expect was a call. 

‘Valarie,’ he said. He had blue eyes. ‘I know you don’t have time for small talk now, so I will just explain how to get out of the Arasaka tower.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ I gasped. 

‘You don’t care about that right now. Continue down this corridor, and then hug the wall to the left. You’re friend did quite a number to that room, but it is currently unoccupied.’

I almost jumped when I saw someone. I was ready to claw my way out of Arasaka. But the body was slumped. Dead. 

Johnny really had done a number on it. 

When I looked around, I could see the place was properly wrecked. Marks of explosions. Gunfire. There were more Arasaka guards around. 

I fumbled for this one’s gun. 

‘Don’t waste your time here,’ he man with blue eyes said. ‘There is a uniform and equipment in the next room. Hurry.’

So I did as he said. I moved into the first door on the left. I was in Arasaka equipment before I knew it. The heavy kind, with full face visors, so no one was any the wiser to look at me. The man with blue eyes had started an evacuation order. Something about a nuclear device on the premises. He assured me it was a bluff. Bullshit, essentially. But it was enough excuse for me to be in uniform and heading for an exit. I was desperate to get out, because somehow that seemed to be the equivalent of getting one up on Arasaka, for Johnny. I was going to get the fuck out. For Johnny.


	29. Chapter 29

I walked out of Arasaka, and kept walking. I did what I was told, because goddamn I’d have been screwed if I didn’t. The place was in total chaos, and I got a glimpse of the shit-show of 50 years ago. Security were being told to stand their ground, or sweep the building, or keep employees and civilians nearby for screening. There was a bomb threat – again – and Arasaka wanted to keep their choke hold on whoever had been inside the belly of the beast at the time. 

They didn’t give a fuck. There was some kind of chess game happening at a level I didn't even know existed before then. I'd just got a glimpse of it. These people, all of them, and I suppose me as well, were just part of a strategy. Somewhere, it made sense, to whoever made the call. Down here, it certainly didn't, and people were torn between doing what they were told, because goddamned they'll be screwed if they don't, and trying to save their own skin. 

The guy waiting for me was the bouncer from Afterlife. Bronson or something. I wasn’t in much mood to talk when I got in the car, and I think the plan had been for him to drop me at the door of the mega building. But I could barely stand up, let alone walk myself to the elevator. 

Mr Blue Eyes was there. He bought a doctor with him – at least, he said he was a doctor – who barely looked at me before handing over a whole collection of pills. I had time to look at them later, and even though they tried to get all the labelling off, I think one set were pain killers – the hectic kind – and there was RPM or something to keep me on my feet. It was a combination you gave to someone you expected to live a long and fruitful life. 

They’re just going to settle for fruitful. 

He had parameters to set. He got me out of Arasaka. That was his part. Now, I was going to do one simple thing, and that was cement myself as legend. 

He explained that he was the one who put Rogue at the top of the pecking order at Afterlife. He knew that a place like that needed someone legendary at the helm. Half the job was maintaining the status quo. Mr Blue Eyes planned for that to be me, for now. The job came with a comfortable life, and looking after when things got rough for me. 

But I wasn’t a proper legend yet. That was the real kicker. I was going to rob a orbital casino of its data. Because data was more important than Eddies, it seemed. Data could take down people in a way that bankruptcy just couldn’t.

He’d come to fuck me when I was desperate. I thought that anticipating it would mean I would have the upper hand, but Johnny knew that was bullshit and doomed to fail. 

But when Mr Blue Eyes left, and the ‘doctor’, and Bronson, I was alone. I had a long, long shower and crawled into bed. I took a handful of the painkillers they’d left in lieu of sleeping tablets, and hoped in some medical way that made sense enough to work.


	30. Chapter 30

‘V... Uh, shit’s getting crazy around here with Arasaka and... Just call me. Yeah. Stay safe.’

Then ten minutes later, there was another voice message. 

‘No. V, fuck that. I know this has got something to do with you and Johnny, because it’s Arasaka. Call me back, or I’ll come find you myself.’

I guess Kerry had spent the time between calls working his panties up into a wad, but I couldn’t feel bad. This guy. He was genuine, and he’d called me because he was worried. 

Although, the little warm glow I got from that line of thought wavered when I wondered if things would be different with Johnny gone. 

I called him back anyway. He didn’t even let me say hello. 

‘What the *fuck* have you two been up to?’

‘Ke-‘ My voice came out bad. I sounded like shit. ‘Kerry,’ I tried again. ‘Quit yelling at me, will you?’

He noticed. ‘Where are you? Still in town?’

‘Yeah, but I’m not sure I should tell you where.’

‘Fine, then just come over.’

‘...I’m not sure I should do that either.’

He shook his head in frustration. ‘You’ll need to make some kind of fucking decision, because I *will* walk around Night Goddamned City and start call your name from street corners. How long do you reckon it’ll take for them to put that on a screensheet?’

I didn’t know what to say. 

Kerry sighed. ‘V. You look like shit.’

‘I know. I’m dying, Kerry.’

‘And you did that, right? You and Johnny?’

‘Yeah.’

‘...And is he...?’

‘He’s gone.’

He nodded. ‘Right. That was the plan, right? That’s what he said, anyway.’

Again, I didn’t know what to say. 

‘Look, I’m gonna come find you, so just tell me where you are and make it easy.’

‘... Kerry, if I tell you where I am, you might end up on watch with some biiiig timers.’

‘And you’re saying that after taking down Arasaka? Fuck.’

When I flicked through the new reels since I'd been asleep, I understood why Kerry had been so worked up. Arasaka really was in meltdown. People were jumping ship: employees, investors... There was looting and rioting, and the other corps were jumping in on the chaos to put the final nails on the coffin. It was dog-eat-dog. Brutal.

I couldn't help myself, and thought about that crooked little shit-eating smile Johnny grew when he reckoned he'd done something right.


	31. Chapter 31

When Kerry turned up, he bought all the things he thought I’d need after our brief conversation. That included a gun, which he tucked into his belt underneath his jacket, but pulled it out and sat it on the table with everything else as soon as he walked in the door, two pizza’s, coffee, a bottle of tequila, and more Eddies in cash than I’d ever seen in my life stuffed into a backpack. 

He also turned up looking like he was straight out of Haywood: a cap pulled way down on his face, a big jacket to hide the bulk of some iron – classic Haywood, never underestimate the guy in the big jacket. 

‘This is your idea of coming in quietly?’

‘What?’ He shrugged. He’d opened the pizza box and taken a slice already, and pushed the rest towards me. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’

‘You look like a dirtbag, and this is a fancy neighborhood. Someone’ll have seen you.’

‘You said they were big timers, right?’ He waved my concern away. ‘They’ll have already figured it out.’

So I told him what I could, about the Afterlife, and about the dumb shit that was going to happen next. Nothing specific, but mostly the plan that I’d go out with a bang. 

‘So, you’re just gonna hold the fort here until then? On your own?’

‘Yeah. Its weird, though, because I haven’t had a second to myself since Johnny turned up in my head. And now...’

‘...Yeah. He has that affect on folks, huh?’

There was a solemn minute when we sat quietly, and thought about that asshole in much nicer ways than we did when he was actually around. But then Kerry said ‘What about that cop you were gonna fuck?’ and I’ve never been so surprised in my life. 

‘Who told you that?’

‘Johnny.’

‘Wha-when?’

‘The other day. I guess, before you stormed Arasaka, but I didn’t know that was happening. He said you’d found something sweet to cut your teeth on, but all the dying biz got in the way, and he was hoping when he’d stopped the dying part that you’d stop giving him blueballs.’

‘-Kerry, I don’t think-‘

‘AND,’ Kerry interrupted. ‘He gave me his number.’ He shrugged. ‘So, I called him.’

‘You’re fucking with me.’


End file.
